


Stay Close; Just Breathe

by HoneyCorvid



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Self-Loathing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jon Sims Gets A Hug, Platonic Cuddling, canon-typical monster baggage, i fucking guess, mentioned harm & trauma, weird prose poetry without a proper POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25161355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyCorvid/pseuds/HoneyCorvid
Summary: if you’re holding so tight to each other that it hurts, you can’t be hurting anyone else.(or: jon and daisy cuddle on the floor while having their own individual crises. takes place mid-late season four.)
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Stay Close; Just Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> the title isn’t a song, for once. it’s a play on “Too Close I Cannot Breathe” instead
> 
> i actually wrote this right after the carousel episode when i had rhythmic prose and dissociation on the brain which is why it’s like this

“Just breathe,” she says, her voice soft and grounding, calloused fingers running gentle through his hair. Jon’s breath comes in shuddering gasps against her shoulder as she murmurs to him, only starting to steady as she leads him through it with her own, in and out and in and out slow and rhythmic and human. 

Just breathe. Just breathe, let the air fill you with calm and quiet; yes the grit remains under your nails and at the back of your throat and probably it always will but now and here and together you can _breathe_ , the old and stale air of the Archives purer and more perfect than any delicacy by virtue of how it slips in and out of your lungs so naturally; it is shared between them, their faces and chests pressed so close that it becomes difficult to tell where one’s breath ends and the other’s begins.

Just breathe. Jon sits curled in her lap, face tucked against the junction of neck and shoulder where her pulse is just noticeable against his skin, blood rushing hot and traitorous through her veins. She feels every cell as it moves, can hear the rush and fury of it, but his slight and bony weight holds her still and steady and calm. The hand that’s not buried in grey-streaked hair rests on his hip, her thumb sweeping slow and gentle across scarred skin where his shirt’s ridden up. Her nail is flat and short because she filed it down an hour ago, and six hours before that, and the night before that; it will be sharp again soon, clawed and curving, but for now she is gentled and blunted by and for and with the monster in her arms. His eyes are closed, she can feel the flutter of lashes against her neck, but he’s still staring-knowing-watching; he catalogues every beat of her heart, every slow and measured breath matched one to one and perfect because it is that or hyperventilate or perhaps stop breathing entirely and he is so, so afraid that if he stops he will never remember to begin again. 

Just _breathe,_ let the slow up and down of your chest push back at the desperate clawing hunger that is ripping you apart from the inside out, hold him tight and close because the closer you hold each other the safer he is from you, the safer you are from him, the safer the world is from the awful roiling hunger that makes up you both, because you both are creatures of hunger and of fear, blood and eyes and teeth that rend and break and watch and _ruin_ , those awful starving things that sing to you that they can make you whole. They _can_ , is the worst part; there is little question in your mind that the salt-and-metal tang of prey would fill the hollow where your purpose used to sit full again to bursting and likewise you and he both know that it would raise him up beyond the weak and mortal things that the two of you pretend to be if he could just _taste_ them, drink the terror from their hearts and lay claim to their dreams as his awful staring sacrament—

Breathe. Breathe deep and slow and hold each other close and static and accountable, here on the ancient wooden floor of the prison that is his temple that is her enemy and your salvation and your home; just breathe, press your face into his hair and let the smell of his conditioner and his blood drown out every mewling prey animal that passes by the door. He knows as well as she does that her claws ache to tear his skin, that there is an enduring pain at the root of her teeth-that-should-be-fangs that croons to her of how easy it would be to pull him back and put her mouth at his throat and _rip_ , how little he’d resist; she doesn’t listen, now or ever, she _won’t_ listen because even to her basest cruelest self he is pack and friend and home and she knows, as he for once does not, that she will never harm him again. 

Just breathe. He keeps his face pressed against the skin of her neck because as long as his eyes are covered and his mouth is shut he is not pulling out her secrets one by one, because the slow rise and fall of her chest keeps his mind from wandering to things no one man should know; fall into the hand in your hair and be caught safe and warm by the one on your hip, tangle your own long trembling fingers in the cotton of her shirt and find comfort in the wolf that would have killed you. She is thin and starving and strong and _wonderful_ and the warm solid presence of her keeps the world just that much safer from your hungry eyes; originally the plan tonight had been drinks and movies but before the day could reach that something had cracked and now the two of you can only find some small and desperate solace in each other, shaken and shattered but unbowed, the sound of gentle rasping breath deafening in its silence. 

Keep breathing. Yours is a love made up of sharp edges and crushing stone but it is _yours_ , and it is monstrous just as you both are monstrous but it is _kind_ just as you both are kind and until the world falls finally all to screams and hunger you will hold each other close. 

**Author's Note:**

> GOD IM SO SCARED FOR WHEN WE SEE DAISY AGAIN NEXT WEEK SO ILL POST THIS WEIRD FUCKING THING WVEN THOUGH ITS NOT MY ISUAL STYLE. ALICE DAISY TONNER I CARE U MAAM
> 
> i’m honeycorvid on twitter


End file.
